I don't know what you've been told, Luke is turning 6 years old!

 I had the most awesome Army party for my 6th birthday.  The first cool part is that the party was before my actual birthday so I get to celebrate twice! The party was at Mimi's house so we could have some room for our army obstacles.  We called her house, Base Camp! The Mess Hall was inside and the basic training course was outside.

 Don't Tread on Me flags marked the house!

 I'm one happy birthday boy waiting for my friends to arrive.  I should mention it was a nice day weather wise, but we have a major outbreak of some serious, serious mosquitoes so everyone was drenched in bug spray.  

 Festive door sign provided by Mom.

 So, the party involved some basic training exercises, training obstacles, a search and rescue mission and everything ended in an epic battle of water balloons.  Our first obstacle was this awesome climbing wall that Daddy and I built and painted.

 After you throw yourself over the climbing wall you did the tire run, then balance beams and then you could either low crawl under the ropes or hurdle them.  In light of our bug situation we all mostly hurdled them!

 The obstacle course ended with some paint ball gun target practice.  Daddy held the gun and me and my friends had a competition for closest shot to the bullseye.  My Dad says my friends and my Buddy have some really, really good aim.

 Here is our sweet family picture before the party.

 Followed up with a Davis inspired gang sign picture.  For the record, I'm doing the Call of the Wildman, Turtle Man hand signal.  Mommy is saying I love you.  Daddy did the Gig 'Em, and Davis has his guns up (of course).

 My super delish birthday cake.  Inside was chocolate cake with vanilla butter cream icing.  Yummo!

 So, here we are doing our basic training led by Mommy.

 She made us do 25 jumping jacks but only 5 push ups.  Guess that is because she was exercising with us??

 We are all at various skill levels when it comes to push ups!

 Here I am in action on the climbing wall. I must have climbed over about 35 times.  I think we will keep this thing around just to have it for fun.

 The balance beam is harder than it looks because you start off running.

 Here is my bud Conner doing the tire run.  We were so lucky that our local tire store let us borrow the tires and bring them back the next day.

 Ahhh, my favorite part- the paint ball gun.  Buddy and I asked to have these added to our Christmas lists.  We were lucky to borrow this one from a friend.  Now we know we have to have our own! For target purposes only!

 Search and rescue mission in full effect.  Before the party we hid about 100 little army men.  We had to stay paired up with our partner while we searched for our missing comrades.

 And this is the water balloon fight. We had three refilling stations and more than 500 water balloons.  It was absolutely fun! (I like to use big adverbs like absolutely when I can).

 When all the balloons were gone, my friends held me down and Michael doused me with the left over balloon water.  I thought that was beyond cool.  I'm like a football coach.

 Post battle- we are drenched!

 I'm one happy boy! We had hot dogs, cheese balls (canon balls), survival mix, bullets (grapes), and other army rations to eat.

 I even had patriotic sparkler candles and a tank candle too.

We meant to get a group shot of everyone in front of the climbing wall but then we forgot so this is a crowd shot and a shot to really higlight how silly my mom's hat looked. She sported that thing throughout the entire party.   Happy Birthday to me.  I had a great day.  Now just a few days until my real birthday!

50 Months

Hi guys!

Hope you are having a great summer.  I am.  I finally feel well and nothing is slowing me down.  I have been a swimming machine.  And a big riding machine.  And a video game playing machine.  I love summer and all this free time.  I'm a fish in the water and love going to touch the bottom of the pool with my goggles on.  I love jumping in the deep end and playing games in the pool with Daddy, Michael and Luke.  Ever since I was sick I have been sleeping really, really well.  No one is complaining about that.  I'm not sure it had anything to do with my virus and pneumonia or if we should attribute it to the totally comfy new Darth Vader blanket I have on my bed.  I have also turned a huge corner on my #2 routine.  I don't have to be forced to go anymore.  I actually go on my own.  Not that any of you care about that but Mommy says she uses this as my baby book and we need to write stuff like that down! I have a new trick this month.  I ask Mommy to call Dad on the phone while he is on his way home and I talk to him like he is an old friend.  I have very thorough conversations with him on his way home.  It is pretty funny to listen to, or so I'm told.  I'm looking forward to a few more weeks of summer fun, a visit from Tia and PacMan and a week of zoo camp.  Hope you all have some good times to look forward to also.

Davis

Visitors from the Big Apple

Mimi's house has been full of guests from the Big Apple this year.  (That's New York for you Texans).  We have had a great time hanging out, shopping, touring and swimming with Marya, Jane, Regina, Camille and Christina.  Hope you can all come back and visit soon.  But, hope we get to come see you all soon too.  We love those New York accents... all of them!

And Mommy was so embarrassed but this is how we chose to pose for a picture to be shown to Marya's New York friends and family.  (Ed. note, by Mommy, SIGH...).

VBS 2012- Reach for the Sky!

 As expected we had a great time at VBS this year.  We are still rocking out to the CD soundtrack from the week.  We loved our teachers and our crafts.  And this year, we had a special science time and we loved that part the best.  Can't wait for next year.

Happy Dad's Day

 I was all kinds of psyched about Fathers' Day this year.  I really wanted to do a balloon drop for Dad but Mom wasn't sure it would work so instead, I blew up and decorated a bunch of balloons and then Mom made them into this cool balloon banner.  I think Dad was impressed because he let us keep it up for about 3 weeks.

 Daddy's special Fathers' Day request was a day trip to the beach.  This is how we roll to the beach.

 Happy Fathers' Day Daddy!

 I really like the beach and enjoy the sand, sun, water, and critters.

Davis, not so much.  He likes to sit in the back of the truck, keep his feet clean and hide from the sun.  Every once in a while, he gets in the water.  But then, someone has to clean his feet and put him back in the truck.  He can kind of be demanding sometimes.